hosting web conferences

1. AnyMeeting

AnyMeeting has been one of the quieter players in the web conferencing sector, but it’s solid service that has been pushing forward on the innovation front. Just two weeks ago, it announced that it hadadded WebRTC technology to its product so you don’t have to use Adobe Flash on some browsers. It has more than 400,000 users across its free and paid offerings.

2. FuzeBox

FuzeBox offers HD video and audio conferencing across quite a few platforms, including PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad, and Android phones and tablets. While you still have to download the apps, the software is cleaner and more intuitive than WebEx and GoToMeeting — so much so that FuzeBox counts big names like Amazon, eBay, Disney, NASA, Evernote, Verizon Wireless, and Spotify as customers.

3. Google Hangouts

Yes, Google Hangouts doesn’t exactly scream business. But so what? Hangouts offers the capability to chat with up to 10 people on a video call for free. You may also collaborate on Drive documents while you talk on a Hangout. This is an especially attractive offer for all the small businesses out there that don’t want to pay for more software and for enterprises that already use Google Apps.

4. Join.me

LogMeIn’s Join.me service is one of the strongest up-and-comers in the web-conferencing field. In my own tests, it works much faster than WebEx and GoToMeeting, but in most cases you do have to download the app once to start a meeting. If you are a participant on a call, however, you can join a meeting without a download — all the call organizer has to do is send you a link.

5. MeetingBurner

We talked with MeetingBurner last year and haven’t heard too much from the company since, but I recently spoke with CEO John Rydell, and he assures me his startup is very much alive and kicking. MeetingBurner uses the power of the cloud to make sure participants can hop on a call or webinar quickly without downloading software. You can host conference calls for up to 10 people for free without showing you ads, and if you need to conduct calls with even more attendees, it undercuts WebEx and GoToMeeting’s prices.

6. Zoom

Zoom was founded in 2011 by folks from Cisco and WebEx who wanted to make a better video conferencing product. It offers HD video or voice conferences for up to 25 people, and it supports meetings on the web, Mac, Windows, iOS, and Android. It also includes a few extra nifty features that aren’t found on many competitors, including screen sharing from iPhone and iPad, a private cloud deployment option, and sharing a computer’s audio feed during screen sharing.